To H. C
(Hartley Coleridge; six years old.)
O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought;Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,And fittest to unutterable thoughtThe breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;Thou fairy voyager! that dost floatIn such clear water that thy boatMay rather seemTo brood on air than on an earthly stream;Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;O blessed vision! O happy child!That art so exquisitely wild,I think of thee with many fearsFor what may be thy lot in future years.
I thought of times when pain might be thy guest,Lord of thy house and hospitality;And grief, uneasy lover! never restBut when she sat within the touch of thee.O! too industrious folly!O! vain and causeless melancholy!Nature will either end thee quite;Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,Preserve for thee, by individual right,A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,Or the injuries of to-morrow?Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth,Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks;Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;A gem that glitters while it lives,And no forewarning gives;But, at the touch of wrong, without a strifeSlips in a moment out of life.
’tis Said That Some Have Died for Love
’TIS said that some have died for love:And here and there a churchyard grave is foundIn the cold North’s unhallowed ground,Because the wretched man himself had slain,—His love was such a grievous pain.And there is one whom I five years have known;He dwells aloneUpon Helvellyn’s side:He loved—the pretty Barbara died,And thus he makes his moan:Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid,When thus his moan he made:
‘O move, thou cottage, from behind that oak!Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,That in some other way yon smokeMay mount into the sky!The clouds pass on; they from the heavens depart:I look—the sky is empty space;I know not what I trace;But, when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart.
‘O what a weight is in these shades! Ye leaves,When will that dying murmur be suppressed?Your sound my heart of peace bereaves,It robs my heart of rest.Thou thrush, that singest loud—and loud and free,Into yon row of willows flit,Upon that alder sit;Or sing another song, or choose another tree.
‘Roll back, sweet rill! back to thy mountain bounds,And there for ever be thy waters chained!For thou dost haunt the air with soundsThat cannot be sustained;If still beneath that pine-tree’s ragged boughHeadlong yon waterfall must come,O let it then be dumb!—Be anything, sweet rill, but that which thou art now.
‘Thou eglantine, whose arch so proudly towers(Even like a rainbow spanning half the vale),Thou one fair shrub—oh, shed thy flowers,And stir not in the gale!For thus to see thee nodding in the air,—To see thy arch thus stretch and bend,Thus rise and thus descend,—Disturbs me, till the sight is more than I can bear.’
The man who makes this feverish complaintIs one of giant stature, who could danceEquipped from head to foot in iron mail.Ah gentle love! if ever thought was thineTo store up kindred hours for me, thy faceTurn from me, gentle love! nor let me walkWithin the sound of Emma’s voice, or knowSuch happiness as I have known to-day.